Defying the supposed death of indie programming and taking on a genre that's regularly stamped with teams of artists, coders and designers that run into dozens, Australian group DownforceFX has set itself quite a task. Comprised primarily of University students and with a budget running up to the equivalent of a few thousand pounds, they've come up with Dead Heat, a surprisingly capable supercar racing game that punches well above its weight.

One of its biggest points of note is the sheer scope of ambition. The game features over fifteen vehicles and a series of courses, the majority of both being modelled on real life equivalents. It's a startling job, bolstered by good quality - while hardly genre-shattering - graphics and generally respectable presentation.

There are two main ways to play the game. The first is a quick race, although how far you get with this is determined by how much content you've managed to unlock. And to unlock that content, you need to take on the Career Race mode. Here, before you get anywhere, you need to pass three driving tests.

There's an opportunity lost here, as the tests should double up as mini-tutorials. Yet the first, a drag test, simply requires you to accelerate. The second and third are better, as they introduce you to steering within set lines and skidding. But even so, a more extensive tutorial mode would serve the game well.

Then it's onto the career proper. Inevitably, at first you're stuck in the beginner league (tougher amateur and professional leagues are available), and it's here you aim to get placed in races to build up the cash to invest in a better vehicle.

Make no mistake, given the tin can car you're lumbered with at the start, it's tough going from the off and we have to recommend the use of either a gamepad or steering wheel. Our attempts to steer the car initially with keyboard controls quickly left us digging into the cupboard for our gamepad.

Once over those hurdles, Dead Heat warmed on us. Its graphics may lack the detail of a TOCA or Trackmania, and indeed the gameplay doesn't come close to matching either of those, for our money, but it's nonetheless a decent racing game. The handling is smart and genuinely differs from car to car, and as we battled our way through we appreciated the care that's clearly been taken in putting the game together. There are plenty of options to tweak, and a Web site backing it all up and explaining what you can adjust.

We battled too, sadly, with the stability of our review version of the game on both of our test machines, although given the enthusiasm of the developers we'd imagine that'll be fixed shortly.

Dead Heat is strictly a single-player-only experience, but for many it'll be weakened by a design decision: you're racing against 'ghost' cars. Sure, you see the other cars on the track, but you drive straight through them as they go about navigating one of their pre-programmed routes.

Now ghost racing isn't an option we mind, but it's the only show on offer here, so there's no jostling against opposition cars and no wild collisions either. Each race is effectively a time trial, and while that works in the short term, it does hamper the potential for long term enjoyment.

So is Dead Heat worth your time? Well, it's certainly worth downloading the free demo. For obvious reasons, it lacks the refinement of a heavily developed alternative, and there are other games in the racing genre that we prefer.

But if the ambition behind Dead Heat was to prove that a small bunch of people with a small bunch of cash could develop a rival to the big boys, then this is a credible effort. It's not likely to make people switch allegiances from their racing game of choice, but given it costs only a smidge over a tenner in our money, gamers who are happy with the ghost racing aspect aren't likely to feel short-changed.

Not a bad racing game, bolstered by the clear ambition behind it. DownforceFX are worth keeping an eye on.